


Return to You Somehow

by jetpacks



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: ALSO also evan has a crush, M/M, Making Up, That's really it, also heidi is there for .2 seconds, in case youre Craving the Mom Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 20:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21185561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jetpacks/pseuds/jetpacks
Summary: Evan's been picturing Jared beside him for a year now. When the real Jared shows up on his doorstep, it's a little hard to believe.





	Return to You Somehow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flatwoods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flatwoods/gifts).

> "are you projecting again, cj?" yeah but the person i wrote it for liked it so does it really matter?  
ALSO thank you to soph nothingunrealistic for beta'ing this <3

The Jared in the back of Evan’s head never appears to him, really. It- he?- speaks to him sometimes, and he can almost always feel his presence, but he’s never really seen him. His therapist- who doesn’t know, of course, only knows that he’d had a falling out with basically everyone around him- says he’s there because he misses him, which… well, he really shouldn’t have had to pay him for that particular nugget of wisdom. 

Evan never thought he’d have to  _ miss  _ Jared.

It’s not a hallucination, though. Evan’s pretty sure of that. He’s had hallucinations before, some weird trauma response from telling the Murphys everything he’d done and effectively ruining his own life, and this is different. He’s created a world in his head where Jared is still there, still likes (or at least tolerates) him, still wants him in his life, doesn’t have him blocked on every social media site imaginable. It’s a better world. It’s the only world he can bear to live in.

“You know, you’re really good at singing, Evan,” Heidi says one day in the car as he sings along to some song Jared recommended to him once upon a time, some acoustic thing with a long title and a soft-spoken singer. He wants to tell her,  _ Thank you so much, I appreciate it,  _ but the words aren’t coming from the Jared he’s picturing in the backseat, so how much does it really mean to him?

Another day, Evan taps his pencil on the blue-lined paper of his math notebook as he stares down at the textbook, splattering specks of silvery graphite in a cluster. “C’mon, Evan, the answer is obviously…” The Jared in Evan’s mind trails off- he’s an extension of himself, after all, and fuck if Evan knows the solution. Five minutes later, he jots down  _ -2  _ and hopes he hasn’t resigned himself to the wrong answer.

Two weeks after he finishes the assignment, the doorbell rings, and the Jared in the back of his head follows him obediently, complaining about how whoever’s at the door interrupted them in the middle of staring at the ceiling. After unlocking it with a dull  _ thunk,  _ Evan swings open the door, and-

The pretend Jared finally makes an appearance.

“...Am I, like, for real seeing things now?” Evan asks, as if the Jared in front of him is real and not the hopeful side of him getting ahead of itself. “Because, I mean, I think my mood stabilizers are also antipsychotics, so that  _ really  _ shouldn’t be-”

“What the hell are you talking about, man?” Jared interrupts, quirking an eyebrow. “Did you go batshit sometime in the past year?”

Well, a little. He’d started to hear voices, got shingles, whatever- but Jared doesn’t need to  _ know  _ that, especially since it was his own fault in the first place. “What? No,” Evan says, laughing it off with that nervous chuckle of his. “I just- I guess- I mean, I wasn’t expecting you to be here. Didn’t you go off to NYU?”

“Well, if you’re not going to be grateful…”

“No, no, I…” Evan clears his throat. “I’m gratef… Actually, um, why are you here?” Not that he isn’t still pretty sure that he’s seeing things, and hearing them, too, without needing to think about what it is that Jared would say.

Jared sticks his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts and shrugs. “Felt like it.”

“NYU is seven hours away, Jared.”

Jared groans, takes a hand out to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Okay, fine. Maybe I thought… we need to talk.”

An image wriggles its way into Evan’s mind’s eye: Jared’s Twitter account, hidden behind a wall of text informing him that he’s been blocked and can no longer view his Tweets. Not that he was going to creep on him at the time or anything, just… he’d been curious as to how he was doing. “You cut me off completely,” Evan points out, voice slow and hesitant. “I didn’t… well, I guess I just didn’t think…”

“That I wanted anything to do with you,” Jared says, finishing his sentence for him. “Well, people change, I guess.” He clicks his tongue, glances away. “Of course, I have no idea if  _ you’ve  _ changed, so this might be a fucking stupid idea…”

“I’ve changed!” Evan says; his voice jumps a desperate half-octave, and he coughs before adding, “Do you… want to come in or something? It looks cold out there.” March in New York isn’t always the most pleasant thing, and Jared’s legs are bare for the most part.

Without a word, Jared steps up onto the front stoop, and Evan leads him inside. He hadn’t been insecure about the acute humbleness of his abode in years, but maybe Jared had forgotten just how shoddy it is; whatever he thinks of it, though, he makes no comment, just sort of looks around.

He doesn’t sit down on the living room couch when Evan does, leaving Evan in a state of mild panic- does he think the couch is gross or something? Is he trying to assert his dominance? Is he afraid of Evan, somehow? Stifling the awkward words that attempt to crawl up his throat, Evan chokes out, “You look good.”

“Started T,” Jared says, as if that explains why Evan’s breathing is off-kilter. Did he always feel this way around him? Had he gotten used to it? 

When Jared begins to speak again, Evan shakes his head to clear it and asks, “Sorry, uh, what were you saying?”

“I was  _ saying,  _ we need to talk.”

“...You’ve said that already.”

Jared twitches, clearly annoyed. “Okay, well, I’m saying it again.” 

“Oh. Okay.” Evan taps his fingers on his thighs, a nervous tic provoked by the fact that, well, his former kinda-sorta-”well, I don’t have anybody else” best friend (who, okay, secretly he still cares deeply about) is here in his living room and is about to have a Deep, Meaningful Conversation with him. He clears his throat again. “Uh, what about?” 

It takes a few seconds for Jared to answer that; he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, not making eye contact (which Evan is certainly  _ not  _ complaining about). “There’s going to be a Hansen-Kleinman get-together in a few weeks,” he says eventually, eyes flicking back to meet Evan’s.

“Oh.” Evan swallows sharply. “So we’d have to be… civil. Right.”

“Right.  _ So,  _ I came here to apologize instead of making it a whole  _ thing  _ in the middle of whatever park they take us to.” Jared rocks back on his heels, then on his toes.

“...There’s gonna be a ‘but’ coming, isn’t there?” Evan asks. That’s just how it is with Jared- he doesn’t mind, per se, but the guy’s sort of… difficult.

“Uh-huh. I need you to apologize first. If you mean it, that is.” Jared leans one hip against the back of the couch; Evan would be intimidated by his gaze coming from up so high, but somehow, things are shifting into the old position: ease, perhaps even comfort. (Did his presence always feel so comforting? Maybe it’s just because of the absence. He’ll take any friends he can get.)

Evan blinks as he reels his thoughts back in, starkly aware that he’s been quiet for too long. “Okay. Um.” He takes a deep breath in, lets it out; then, with as confident a voice as he can muster, says, “I’m sorry.”

Jared is silent for a few seconds before saying, “...Well, that was less satisfying than I hoped it would be.”

“Sorry to disappoint…?” Evan says, uptalking as if his weak apology is a question.

Jared shrugs and scratches at his arm, leaving reddish streaks behind on the skin that Evan knows is dry- the guy never moisturizes. “Not your fault. Guess I’m insatiable.”

“Guess so.” 

Silence.

“...So, what can I do to make it better?” Evan switches from tapping on his thighs- which he just knows is annoying- to scratching at them through the thick denim of his jeans. “Because I…”

“Want things to go back to normal.” Jared nods. “Don’t get me wrong. So do I.” He gestures toward one of the couch cushions with his head. “Can I sit down?”

“Oh, thank God. I thought you’d never ask.” Evan watches, unblinking, as Jared shuffles in between him and the coffee table, then practically throws himself onto the couch with a sigh. “Um, are you alright?” Evan asks.

“Fine and dandy,” Jared mutters. “I just… I need to know that this won’t happen again. That you won’t use me for emails and shit like that.”

“You know the email stuff is over.”

“It’s the principle of the thing. Don’t get pedantic.” Jare sighs, leans back against the back of the couch. Despite how abrasive he’s been this entire time- how much pent-up anger did he have in him, anyway?- he seems to be at home here after all this time. “Things aren’t going to go back to normal right away. Okay? I might…”

A few moments after Jared trails off, Evan leans in and asks, “...Jared?”

Jared sighs again. “I might need you to make a promise.” He averts his gaze, as if the request is too pathetic to be faced head-on.

“I can make a promise,” Evan says, eagerness in his voice. “Jared, I  _ promise  _ I won’t use you, or… or leave you behind or anything.”

Jared’s face softens, and he turns back to Evan. “I guess I forgive you,” he says, though he’s clearly hesitant. Still, there’s a gentle smile on his face as he says, “But don’t give me those puppy-dog eyes.”

“Wh- this is my normal expression!” Evan protests, but regardless of Jared’s teasing- or perhaps because of it- he can’t keep back a laugh. Jared’s smile, for some reason, has his heart fluttering.

Jared rolls his eyes, but his expression soon becomes stony again. He clears his throat. “And… I’m sorry, too. For being such a dick all the time, and for leaving when you needed me.”

It clicks together in Evan’s head, then. The reason he’s been breathing wrong, and why he’s so self-conscious; the reason his heart is tripping over itself. Of course he needs Jared; of course he always has. Good God, not another crush- that’s the last thing he needs. “...Well, then,” he mumbles, and Jared cocks his head.

“I see you’re still talking to yourself.”

“I don’t- I don’t  _ talk  _ to myself,” Evan says, though it’s clearly a lie. He swallows, scratches his right cheek. “Um. It’s just good to have you back.”

“Aw, don’t get all sentimental on me,” Jared says, and does that stupid snort-laugh that Evan’s always found so endearing. 

It’s Evan’s turn to roll his eyes. “Okay, whatever, Jared.” He’ll deal with whatever ‘love’ business later. Right now, he needs to take it slow, rebuild the friendship, as much as it hurts his heart as a naturally romantic person. Plenty of things have tested his strength over the past year, though; this is no different.

It’s funny how things slip back into the old routine so quickly. Actually, funny might not be the right word- rather, it’s  _ relieving,  _ surely more relieving than Evan deserves. But he pushes the self-deprecating thought away, and, when Jared walks down the driveway to get to his car, Evan finds that he can’t contain the smile on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, i love you!


End file.
